By Abbie VanSickle New York Times
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld federal restrictions aimed at curtailing access to kits that can be easily assembled into homemade, nearly untraceable firearms, a rare move by a court that has taken an expansive view of gun rights.

In a 7-2 decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the court’s conservatives, the justices left in place requirements enacted during the Biden administration as part of a broader effort to combat gun violence by placing restrictions on so-called ghost guns.

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Gorsuch included photographs, unusual in court opinions, to illustrate how one of the gun kits, Polymer80’s “Buy Build Shoot,” came with “all of the necessary components to build” a Glock-style semi-automatic weapon. He wrote that it was “so easy to assemble” that it could be put together in about 20 minutes.

“Plainly, the finished ‘Buy Build Shoot’ kit is an instrument of combat,” Gorsuch wrote, adding that no one would confuse the pistol “with a tool or a toy.”

The ruling in favor of gun regulations is a departure for the court, which has shown itself to be skeptical of them — and of administrative agency power. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both conservatives, filed dissents.

The “weapon-parts kits themselves do not meet the statutory definition of ‘firearm,’” Thomas wrote, important because Congress in 1968 agreed the government could legally impose some regulations on firearms. “That should end the case.”

Legal experts said the decision was a victory for those advocating more gun regulations.

“Although this is not a Second Amendment ruling, it shows that the justices are not uniformly hostile to gun regulation,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA. “Ghost guns have been found in increasing numbers at crime scenes, and today’s decision should help the problem.”

The Biden administration in 2022 enacted rules tightening access to the weapons kits, after law enforcement agencies reported that ghost guns were exploding in popularity and being used to commit serious crimes.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated that use of the gun components and kits in crime increased tenfold in the six years before the rules were adopted.

Among the regulations: requiring vendors and gunmakers to be licensed to sell the kits, mandating serial numbers on the components so the weapons could be tracked and adding background checks for would-be buyers.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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